Day 2

Sorry I wasn't able to post yesterday-- it was very busy.

Yesterday was an orientation day at the university. We took a tour of the university, which consists of 20 different colleges-- kind of crazy. The main building, what is the second picture on my last post, is called the Catho and is where I have most of my classes.

The weather was really nice yesterday, so some friends and I walked down to the park that's right next to the university. The city of Lille was built around canals, and a promenade/park follows the canal. We went to a zoo inside of the park, which was completely free. The zoo is built inside a large citadelle that was built by Louis XIV in the 1600s after he conquered Flanders.

We had a fancy welcoming dinner last night with traditional Flanders food. The food here is terrible. My friends and I only stayed about 5 minutes, then we discretely slipped out the door and went to the equivalent of a Subway. Everyone over here admits that the food is terrible-- the most popular food over here is Domino's Pizza, McDonalds, and Subway. People really do smell over here, too. But I'm having fun, and it's been a great experience so far.

There are more pictures uploaded to this album: http://picasaweb.google.com/TigerColby/Lille?authkey=Gv1sRgCNP0nfjLzdu96wE

(And I let a friend borrow my camera at the zoo-- I was not that fascinated by the turtles....)